At least, if your purpose in voting is to actually influence the election.
I think his argument, and even that of this blogger who disagrees with him, are way off base (you’ll see my comments below the post); but wow, I really liked Freakonomics so I’m pretty disappointed. Lots of smart people here on SDMB, so I’m curious to hear what y’all think.
It’s a paradox. One vote never makes a difference in an election with hundreds of thousands of voters or more (and if there’s an exception to that rule- so what? The odds are vanishingly small). But if everybody used that logic, we would no longer have a democracy. Levitt claims that he votes because it’s fun. I vote for an old fashioned reason: it is a civic obligation. Or at least that’s my rationale: I actually don’t think personal motivation of this type is fully knowable.
Essentially this is a group activity. Few cogs are irreplaceable: no single vote will swing a large election. But this won’t stop campaigns from calling individuals during GOTV efforts: some things must be done one person at a time.
I for one am less than enamored with Freakonomics: some of it is too clever by half.
ETA: Reminder: It’s not just the Presidential election at work. There are all manner of smaller-bore choices on the ballot like ,oh, Senator and Representative.
I think he’s right. My vote is totally worthless (partially because I live in a solidly Dem state). It would matter a little more if the popular vote decided the president, but it’s still a drop in an ocean. My vote matters a tiny bit more when it comes to the propositions, but it’s still a drop in the lake. Ironically, the more local the race, the more impact my vote has, yet the less I can be bothered to give a shit.
But I vote nonetheless a little out of civic duty, blah blah blah, but mainly because I think it’s a good idea to be the change you wish to see in the world.
I agree. Using the same “I don’t make a difference” logic, it really doesn’t matter if I litter. One candy bar wrapper blowing in the wind isn’t going to matter - few people will even notice it. But if a lot of people think that way, then it WILL make a difference.
IMO, encouraging a lot of people to think their vote doesn’t matter is just as dumb and irresponsible as encouraging a lot of people to think that their littering doesn’t matter. Rationalizing destructive behavior on an individual level is one thing, but once you cross the line into encouraging many people into acting irresponsibly, you’re amplifying the potential negative consequences.
So, in that way, writing about how one person’s vote doesn’t matter is sort of a self-defeating prophecy, since the more people agree with you, the more wrong you all are.
It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative, right? You should behave in the way that you’d want everyone to behave.
Or to put it another way, it’s important that people (collectively) vote. If, believing that, I still choose not to vote, then I’m a dick, in exactly the same way that I’d be a dick for refusing to pay my taxes while happily benefiting from the taxes that everyone else pays.
If you don’t vote, you’re making it less likely for future politicians to view your demographic as one to influence. It’s why old people are so important to politicians - they vote reliably.
I agree with Levitt. It’s an easy decision for me as I don’t have a vote (not a US citizen), but I doubt I would if I could.
Note that Levitt is not saying that someone is not smart simply because they vote, but if they
Someone voting because they think it is their civic duty, but knowing it is not goind to affect the result, is a different case.
In Canadian politics, federal political parties are funded using per-vote subsidies, so by voting I’m allocating $1.75 (in 2004 dollars) to the political party of my choice out of the public coffers. That’s enough incentive for me.
Of course the same argument can be made; it makes no real difference if your party of choice gets $5,000,000 or $5,000,001.75.
People vote because it increases their personal utility to do so. It doesn’t matter if you call it “fun,” as Leavitt does, or a “Civic obligation,” as Measure for Measure does; either way you are voting because you feel better about voting than you do about not voting.
Voting to lift a major-party candidates from 37,424 to 37,425 votes in your county is a waste of time, since nobody will care. On the other hand, if you lift a little-known third party candidate from 6 to 7 votes in your county, it may actually give a boost to supporters of that candidates.
Exactly. I go as much to vote for little known candidates for county district judge, etc… as I do to vote for Senator, Representative, state offices, President, etc…
Well, in Texas and concerning my vote, Levitt is perfectly correct. Polls are reasonably reliable to within a few percentage points, and polls tell me that in the presidential, Romney will carry the state 58%-41% or thereabouts. At lower levels it’s even more hopeless. The county I vote in tends to pretty reliably go about 65% Republican. Therefore there is no question that no matter who I vote for, my individual vote is completely meaningless.
I don’t care, I’ll vote anyway. Otherwise, by my silence I’d be tacitly supporting policies and objectives I don’t necessarily agree with. Likewise, if the wrong guy wins, I’ll at least have standing to bitch about it for the next four years.
Levitt and Dubner should join Gladwell in a book about how often pop culture books are wrong.
I don’t vote because my vote doesn’t matter.
Well, what if everyone else had that attitude?
If everyone else had that attitude, I would vote.
The problem with this is that you voing or not voting does not have an impact of whether everybody else will or will not use that logic, which leaves you back where you started.
I agree with you that it’s a paradox. (It may have some logical similarity to the “surprise test” paradox.)
These are logical errors.
There’s a difference between having a very small impact and having zero impact.
There is a very small impact of one wrapper blowing in the wind, or of a small contribution to a party. There is zero impact from making your candidate win/lose by one vote more/less.
Your post gave me an idea that is either completely brilliant or totally stupid. What if the minority party decided one election that in all statewide races to throw their support to the largest(and in your case left-wing) party like the Greens or Reforms or Libertarians? AND they announce it well ahead of time, run ads for them, popular (in your case Pubs) come out and get Pubs to vote third-party and to solidify this, do not even run a Pubbie candidate that they could vote for.
Why do all this? Maybe if a third party takes on major party status for one election, it will sway enough voters that don’t want to waste their vote voting for a minor party. If so, it would at least deny that state to the other major party like the Dems. In a state of California this would probably throw the election into the House/Senate.
Long-term, with all of the support and money coming in, the third-party may splinter your opponant’s party.
These are logically the same thing.
There is a tiny, but non-zero chance, that your vote will in fact be the one that determines the outcome of an election.
There is an equally tiny, but non-zero chance, that your $1.75 will tilt one vote one way or another.
You are correct. I retract my previous post (as regards to you). My apologies.
This is like the old economist joke, paraphrased thusly:
The point is that there is no actual personal gain directly obtained from voting, at least for national elections, as your vote is almost certainly not going to affect the outcome. So from an economist’s perspective, the only reason to vote is from societal obligations, such as your spouse pressuring you to vote, being seen by your community out voting, being able to label yourself as part of the political process, etc.
I’ve heard a (citeless) story that illustrates this. A country allowed internet voting in order to facilitate voting but actually saw a decrease in voter turnout. This is because no one will ever know if you’ve actually voted or not, due to secret ballots, so that incentive is removed.
I think that there’s an important difference: one who shirks their civic obligations is a jerk, and one who passes up some fun is not.
I think if you don’t vote, despite genuinely caring about the outcome, then you’re a jerk, in exactly the same way you’d be a jerk for not paying your taxes despite wanting the government to be fully funded. Your personal contribution is of course miniscule, but so is everybody else’s, so for you to not do your part and rely on everybody else is unfair.
If on the other hand you don’t vote because you genuinely don’t think the outcome matters, then you are ignorant and foolish, but not a jerk (at least not for the same reason).